Grant County herald. [volume] (Lancaster, Wis.) 1850-1968, 1887-03-31
A Word for Pork.

In this country, where it is the
cheapest of all meat, roast pork is Oft
en- a rarely used and despised dish, ex-
cept by Germans and Irish. In En-
gllsh cities, where pork is the most ex-
pensive meat, loin costing more per
pound than sirloin of beef, where pork
sausages are twenty-five cents to TWEEN
ty-four cents a pound. while beef sau-
sages Ga fayorite dish with London
working people, are twelve cents to
sixteen cents, pork is looked upon as
a great treat. 1t is only because it is
cheap that it is despised? know
many believe it to be unwholesome; is
not this, too, partly prejudice? There
are some people certainly who cannot
eat pork, but there are also some to
whom veal is almost poison. As to its
wholesomeness, think we ought to
look at the people who almost live on
it. The English agricultural popula-
ton, the Germans, who in their various
sausages eat it In all forms. Where
are there healthier people than those
English or those Germansp Look at
the children who, from the time they
are weaned, eat daily such fat pork as
would make one shudder to think of;
in English rural districts it is not an
occasional, but steady diet, day after
day all the year around. At the road
side, sitting on the messy banks that
flank the fields they are tilling, may be
seen laborers with hunch of bread
and thick slice of pork or of bacon
on the top of it, solid fat, and a
thumb piece" ca small piece of bread
that the thumb rests on), while they
cut down through fat and bread with
their knives. This, with perhaps a
raw onion and drink of beer, is their
daily dinner year in and year out, but
do you suppose they know anything of
dyspepsia? / don't think many of
them ever heard the word, and one
look at the ruddy skin, the strong
frames even of their old people will
tell you that. OF course the outdoor
life makes difference, but the school
children are the rosiest and chubbiest.
Take at random any group of these
pork fed children and there will not be
a sickly one among them.
When these girls and boys go to
London, as in these days most do, they
take places where there is abundant
fresh meat, fare such as they never
dreamed of, and the one thing they
crave is their country pork, not that
pork is not eaten in London, but it is
expensive, and it is not the ''pickled"
pork with several inches of fat, they
love so well. In the baskets of coun-
try women visiting city friends, is al
ways piece of this picked pork and
sometimes a piece of bacon is packed
and brought away in trunk.
To the London working classes,
roast leg or loin of pork stuffed, is the
next luxury to roast goose, and the
working people, if they cannot afford
a goose, take pork and sage and onions
for Christmas dinner as the next best
thing, roast beef or mutton being the
usual Sunday dinner and therefore not
'.treat."
l suppose there are no harder,
healthier races in the world than the
English and Germans, especially the
country people; both are largely pork
fed.
should perhaps state that / speak
only from observation. have no
scientific knowledge on the subject.
Pork takes its place in my family in
change with other meats, and we know
nothing of dyspepsia, which we might
do if the American climate made the
use of pork unadvisable.
Another thing urged against pork is
that the pig is an uncleanly feeder, but
no one says this of that dainty bird the
chicken. Is there any filth pig
would eat that chicken would not?
Do not chickens revel in ohal? Can
there be more uncleanly feeder? If
it is the food of the animal that units
it for use, then the chicken must come
under that ban.
know people who tell me they have
never eaten fresh roast pork. If there
are any among my readers who do not
yet know the excellence of roast leg of
pork with the cracking neatly scored
and crisped, stuffed with bread, sage,
and boiled onions, and eaten with
apple sauce, let her buy one, and roast
it till it is brown as chestnut, and
perhaps she will thank me for persuad-
ing her. Perhaps in her house Mrs.
Poyser's STUFFED chine may come to
hold place of honor rs savory joint
to have on hand. Catherine Oi0e1, IA
Good Housekeeping.